Coeur d'Alene!

Coeur d'Alene is the next destination of things to do.  The date that I will be going is June 24th 2013.  The goal that I have now had for about a year is to do an Ironman.  It all came when i was watching one of the three channels that I got from the antennas on my tv last summer.  The world Ironman Championships was being televised and while i should have been studying or something else I couldn't stop watching.  I don't think I blinked during the whole show.  By the end I was hooked.  This happens a lot for me.  I'll see something and decide i want to do that for the rest of my life.  I remember as a kid watching Driven,  a movie about nascar racing, after watching that I wanted to be a nascar driver even though I never even liked NASCAR before.  The same thing happened while watching the World Series.  I always thought that baseball was boring but after watching the series i wanted to be a major league pitcher.  (this would've probably ended terribly if i pursued such a career because of the fact that I'm terrified of getting hit in the face by a baseball.)  But for some reason after not doing anything about completing an Ironman one year after watching the event, this dream has stuck with me.  So since it has withstood the Tanner's bucket of ADD goals that get forgotten I have decided to do something about it.  I have researched for the last few months about the best way of going about this without dying and it looks like the first step was reading.  I bought a book by Matt Fitzgerald that helps design a proper training schedule. Since the actually ironman is about a year a way and the book designs a 6 month training plan for that distance, i decided to actually get in shape first so i don't die.  I'm doing that by using the same book and training for a sprint and then an olympic distance triathalon.  I've already started and it is going well.  (PS you might have noticed that while reading through this entry and there were many grammatical errors and nonsense sentences.  That is my style of writing. I hate editing my own writing.  I turn in papers this way and pass so I'm fine with it.

Coeur d'Alene

This is what i watched

Thurston Peak

Thurston Peak.

I was able to go hiking with my brother last weekend.  It was awesome!  It has snowed that morning which made perfect conditions for exploring Thurston Peak.   Thurston peak is the tallest peak in Davis and Morgan county and is the peak behind adams canyon and the waterfall.  That morning I rented some cramp-ons, ice axes and ski poles for my brother.  This was one of the coolest hikes I've been on in a while.  There is nothing like climbing a ridge for miles.  The views are awesome all the way up.

 This is a map of where we hiked.  The deviation from the ridge half way through kind of marks where we had to put on crampons and climb up a steep and rocky chute in order to regain the ridge.

 This is the other end of that chute.  Relieved to be done with it and getting back on the ridge

Picture of me climbing up the ridge.  It was this beautiful all the way up.  The fresh snow left everything frozen at the top making a cool effect looking down at the green valley.

 By this point Jordan and I were absolutely exhausted.  This hike has just a little more than 5000 feet of elevation gain in just 4 miles.  This is a little more gain than what you get on Mt. Timp but in half the distance.  It almost killed us getting to the top.  There are no picture at the top because we were too exhausted and also with the wind chill up there it really was not a place that we wanted to stay at.....except to eat my pizza lunchable that i had been saving.

This was jordan and I at the beginning feeling very confident about ourselves.  We both forgot though by the end that we both have not stayed in shape during the last semester so by the time we got to the car jordan had slid down the last hill on his butt because his legs were too weak and neither of us could really move for about a day after wards.  It was totally worth it.

List #1 Provo Peak

Persistency of a backdrop.

I have been staring at this ridge line (from a different angle) for the past 5 years.  For those who do not know what this is, it is the ridge line containing Shingle Mill, Freedom, and Provo peaks.  I have been dreaming mostly for the past two years about climbing Provo peak in the winter, the tallest of the peaks, and snowboarding down it.  It has been an obsession that has cost me hours of web searching and probably and GPA drop.  Every day I look out the window and see theses mountains something insides tells me to drop school, drop work, and just go for it. This is where my problem comes in.  The Utah backcountry is beautiful but deceiving.  There are a list of things that I must do first in order to make my goal.

1) Avalanche awareness and experience. This is number one for sure.  Understanding the weather patterns and snowpack and knowing how to apply that knowledge is the difference between me having the time of my life and dying, and dying is not conducive to me accomplishing the rest of my goals.  This task has been taking me the longest but i have already started this journey. This past December I received a book on avalanche awareness called Avalanche Terrain.

I'm currently in the middle of mastering this book.  Understanding avalanches is extremely difficult because of how many variable there are.  It takes patience.  This book is great but the next step in the field is taking actual avalanche safety courses.  This is my next step.  That is for next winter. 

 2) Obtaining the correct equipment.  This is going to be the most expensive part of my venture.  Before I fell comfortable going out I need the right equipment.  That is not to say i need the best equipment. Five years ago I broke out into the snowshoeing field on the back side of Mt. Timpanogos  and got a field for travelling in the snow.  Then a year ago I actually bought my own snowshoes and was determined to start on the road to more serious winter mountaineering. This past December I took it a step farther by getting a backpack, that can carry all the necessary gear, ski poles that were lacking from last winter, winter hiking shoes, an avalanche shovel, and a slope meter to judge slope angles.  I still need new ski pants, snowboard, boots, ice axe, and avalanche beacon.  This is something that takes time and money.

3) Improving my snowboarding skills.  This is my favorite part.  For the past two years I have either been too poor and too busy to really put in a good winter's worth of snowboarding.  I am very confident on groomed anything.  There is nothing like diving straight down a black diamond and opening my arms and the bottom. It feels like flying!  I'm equally confident and a fresh slop of powder. The last frontier for me is light turns in powder with obstacles and mastering the cliff jump.  If anybody has suggestions as to the resort with the best cliff access and most powder days i would love to hear your input.  I have extensively snowboarded at PC.  Well this goal will be met next winter when i get my ski pass.  I'm so excited to get back to the place I love! The mountains!  I love snowboarding, winter, the cold, and everything that comes with it.

This list might change as I continue to learn what I need.  My goal date for this is FEBRUARY 2013.  I'm going to be updating this post as more develops on this goal.  If there are any suggestions let me know.

That is one sexy spine.

Nothin like a little inspirational video to get you out the door.